Web Design and SEO: How the Two Go Hand in Hand

Improve your website design and your rankings will follow suit, but how are they related?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is more than just keywords. It’s a multi-layered process, offering your website many different paths to the first results page on Google. In this guide, we’ll show you how web designers can help your website climb right to the top.

Using their skills, web designers can make your site popular with both internet users and search engines. Search engines want user friendly websites to be found more easily – if internet users love your website, so will Google.

Google looks at the design of your website. It analyses how long each user stays on each page, records how many times users bounce back to the SERP (search engine results page), and checks if your pages are mobile responsive. All of this affects your rankings.

As well as helping your website stand out amongst the competition, web design companies can really help your SEO by improving the engagement and UX (User Experience) of your site. Again, these are all ranking factors.

Why should you keep reading? Because like cheese and nachos, web design and SEO go hand in hand – and you’re about to find out exactly how.

Improve Engagement

You already know visitor engagement is vital for conversions, but it’s also a ranking factor. If your website doesn’t keep people hooked, your bounce rates will increase and your rankings will drop.

The bounce rate is the number of visitors who land on your website, but return to the SERP without clicking another page. This happens when the user isn’t engaged, or simply lands on the wrong page. Either way, it’s bad for SEO.

What’s a good bounce rate, then? Naturally, one-page sites like blogs have high bounce rates (usually around 80%), but online store owners should aim for around 20-30% to maximise profits and maintain high rankings on Google.

While a high bounce rate doesn’t have a direct impact on your SEO, it still notifies Google that someone left your website for whatever reason. Each ‘bounce’ tells Google the user wasn’t engaged, and in the eyes of a search engine, that’s a big no-no.

Web design companies can make your website more engaging, and ultimately improve your SEO. By understanding the psychology behind web design, they can make your website more exciting, easier to navigate, and quicker to load.

[expm_message_box title=”Did you know?” message=”A 100-millisecond delay in load time can reduce conversion rates by 7%.”]

What makes an engaging website? It’s all about balance. Say you’re running a subscription business – you want visitors to enjoy your site without pressure, but you also need their contact information. Web designers know everything, from the best times to use pop-ups to the most enticing colours for CTA buttons.

Web designers like are like film directors. If you’re watching an engaging film that’s easy to follow, you won’t change the channel. The same goes for websites. And as your website engagement improves, your rankings should follow suit.

Improve UX and accessibility

UX stands for user experience. It represents the visitor’s journey on your website, so it’s important to make this as enjoyable as possible. The question is, how does UX affect SEO?

Like any business owner, Google wants the best for its users. And because of this, websites that are user-unfriendly will suffer in the search results pages. In psychological terms, it’s negative reinforcement.

What we mean by this is that bad design will hurt your SEO more than great design will improve it. Essentially, Google is punishing ‘bad’ behaviour. Either way, when designing a website, just don’t forget about the user – otherwise Google’s algorithms will catch you out!

[expm_message_box title=”Did you know?” message=”Almost 40% of internet users will stop using a website if the layout is unattractive.”]

Web designers are UX-perts. They understand the relationship between SEO and user friendliness – namely that if internet users love your website, so will Google.

With this knowledge, web design companies bring with them a whole handbook of UX tactics that most website owners don’t possess.

So, how can UX help your website become the apple of Google’s eye? And more specifically, how do web designers go about this?

The general rule is that search engines like simple layouts. You could have the coolest site on the world wide web, but if users can’t navigate the pages easily, your website will struggle to rank highly in the SERPs.

Web designers can also make your website mobile friendly. This is a big ranking factor – with more people using mobiles than desktops these days, it’s vital that your website looks great on screens of all sizes.

Web designers can also make it easy for users to find the answers they’re looking for. Using their expertise, they can reshuffle, design, and shape your website to make the user experience as seamless as possible.

Stand out amongst competition

Stand out online and your rankings will be fine… Easier said than done, considering the internet hosts over1.8 billion websites. But that’s where web designers come in.

Unique and compelling content has long been an important ranking factor, and web designers can help your site stand out from your competition.

You already know that high quality content is important for SEO, but let’s explore why your website needs to be unique and exciting.

Standing out from the competition comes down to ‘dwell time’ – in other words, how long someone stays on a website. If your website keeps people hooked for longer than your competitors’ websites do, you will rise above them and up the SERPs.

This is down to the fact that dwell time is a ranking signal. Search engines know exactly how long users are staying on your website, and in the case of dwell time, the longer the better.

As we said, web design companies know how to make your website stand out from the crowd, and ultimately rise up the SERPs. They know what’s hot in the website world, and what’s not – and how to keep users on your site for longer.

Web designers can blend the vision of your business into the latest design trends. They can tell stories using special effects, interactive designs, and quirky fonts.

Next steps

As we’ve explained, SEO is more than just keywords. The design of your website can have a huge impact on where it ranks on search engines, and web design companies know the best tactics to achieve this. Keen to know more? For a quick overview on your web design options, click here to easily compare quotes.

Think of it like selling real estate. Interior designers make your house look beautiful, which encourages buyers to view it, and in turn reduces the chance of them viewing a competing house. A web designer can do that for your website.

Search engines look at the design of your website as a ranking signal. Think of Google like a bouncer – if you want your website to get inside the top tier rankings, it needs to dress up smart. In this case, smart means a great UX.

Web designers are just the ticket for getting your website inside the prestigious ‘club’ of high-ranking spots. Not only can they improve your site’s UX, they can increase engagement, and help you stand out amongst competitors.

So, for all website owners, we’d say it’s worth spending a few extra pennies on a designer. You’ll be soaring up the SERPs and succeeding online in no time!